ES345 Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 I have a Gibson 6A, i must have bought it around ; 58 or maybe even earlier, i first played it with a J 45 and a dearmond pup in the soundhole, and than later in '62 with my 345, a great little amp, 6V6's and it saw a lot of duty in clubs, weddings, even in a orchestra, where it was first miked (a little), i still use it, it has been recapped, tubed many times, it was never biased until about 3 years ago, when i suspected a tube was bad, i took it to the drug store tested it and then bought one or two RCA's for about 4 bucks to replace on the way to a gig and play on. istill sounds beautiful, the definitive jazz tone. Anyone else still using and old gibson? peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flameburst Posted January 19, 2008 Share Posted January 19, 2008 Hi 345, Yes, I still use my little Gibson amp from time to time. It's a 1954 two-tone GA40 Les Paul Amplifier. Again, like yours it has 6V6 tubes. It's a warm sounding amp with lots of natural earthy distortion. I wonder if this is where the term "brown tone" comes from? I found the amp on Ebay a couple of years ago from a guy in London - and it was missing the original badge. As luck would have it one week later on Ebay, some guy in the states was selling the badge I needed. It cost me another $75 to get it, but I'm glad I did. It needs a replacement handle. Here it is propping up my 1956 Custom and posing with my 1961 Gretsch 6120. flameburst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ES345 Posted January 19, 2008 Author Share Posted January 19, 2008 flameburst, that is one fabulous looking old amp, fantastic condition, the best shape i have ever seen one in, and it must sound good, are the capacitors in good shape? if they are and tubes are good it has to sound nice and wonderful with that alnico up front. beautiful guitar as well, i am glad i decided to see if gibson had done some work on their forum cite. i was actually looking for some pics of the new guitars from Namm show. But this was a welcome find. i'll post a pic of my old gibson amp, but it might several days, believe me it looks like you'd expect an old 50's gibson amp that spent 3 nights a week traveling in the trunk of the old hudson to a gig. once again you 've got a beautiful amp and the '54 custom has always been a favorite of mine. peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 I've had a couple of vintage Gibson amps over the years. In the early 70's I had a Mercury II piggyback. Two 6L6's, two channels (one with tremolo), and a cabinet with a 15" and a sealed back 10". I sold it to a bass player who put two 15's in the cab. I bought it back and put two 12's in the cabinet. The best configuration was probably the factory original 15 & 10. I currently have a 1961 GA-8 Discoverer. I bought it for use as a lightweight low-power jazz combo amp with my L-5 and L-7, and it also works great as a practice amp. It had been re-capped when I got it but still had the original tubes, Jensen 12" speaker, Gibson nameplate and handle. It's a two knob box (Volume-Tone), with a 5Y3 rectifier, 12AX7 preamp tube pushing two 6V6's. This is the same amp and cabinet as a Gibsonette except this one has a 12" speaker instead of a 10". It distorted real nice after about 4 or 5 on the volume knob, but what I needed was a clean tone machine, so when I re-tubed it I put a 12AU7 on the front end and had the coupling caps changed. This tamed it very nicely, but you can still get the overdrive if you want. The harmonica player in my band has now discovered it, so I'm hauling it around to gigs for him. Guess I better get a road case for it. Here's a couple pics. 1961 GA-8 Discoverer: And with the guitars it was bought for: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPDEN Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Lordy! Threads like this give me Amp GAS! (I think that is better than saying AAS)... But I digress. I think I need to get more Vintage Gibson amps in my music room Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldpay Posted July 19, 2008 Share Posted July 19, 2008 Hi folks and fellow Gibson enthusiasts. This is my first post here at the Gibson forum so I thought Id try posting pics of My amp: A nice old 59 suitcase model, I think these are pretty rare. I like it fine. Its very very quiet and sounds good. I beleive verything is 100% original but for 7 sheet metal screws which were lost and replaced with new ones, and of course the tubes. It has old big bottle GC's in it right now. None of the caps seem to have been changed. The circuit is a bit different in that it has a 5V6 which I have no idea what it does in there(driver tube??)along with the two 12ax7's and two 5881's. It has a GZ34 rectifier. Its very quiet and kinda neat how the head goes inside the speaker cab. It has a jensen P12P that is imacculate in there. You can see from the first photo. The inside has remained very clean and free from dust due to the unique storage for the head. The whole things packs away inside the speaker cab for toteing around. Its not too bad if you add a little foam to keep in secure in there, but you wouldnt want to toss it. It still must be handled a bit more carefully than a crate. Note the cute brass cupboard drawer type handles, I think they are original ?? too but Ive never seen another so I am unsure. I read they only made 42 of these from 1959 to 1961 but that could be untrue. Who know's...or cares...its a great amp! Ive yet to put a pedal in front of it its got me playing soo clean. Not a fender tone but something else, still nice...unique and sonically very good. I bought it at a thrift store, it was still expensive as thrift store finds go...thanks to the net of course but... for a guitar ampI just liked it so why not. thanks for looking... Bill Next I 'd like to get a Gibson guitar from 59. Now that may take a few years saving. cheers to ya & enjoy the pics. Bills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ES345 Posted July 20, 2008 Author Share Posted July 20, 2008 I am certainly not a vintage expert, but that really looks nice, i have never seen or heard of that model. it is probably worth quite a bit to a collector. what type of speaker does it have, it looks like it has a standby switch, irreplaceable, very nice, surprising that it is still very quite and clean, you would think the capacitors would need to be replaced, but if ain't broke i wouldn't change anything. peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldpay Posted July 20, 2008 Share Posted July 20, 2008 ES -It has a 12 inch Jensen P12P. I agree about the caps unless the amp was used perhaps once or twice a week and stored in a really good enviroment. I dont know what it'd be worth. I looked in there under the board and all those are the old orange paper types. I suppose they could have been replaced with vintage ones but somehow I dont think so. You can see a large gibson logo is missing from the speaker grill. That rectangular off color is just the photo, There are three holes to mount it, one of the pins is still in there. I'm trying to find a logo the 2 outside holes are spaced about 4 inches, so it needs the large tweed gold one. Heres a few more pics so you can see how this thing goes together. Its just too cool and practical as can be shown by the condition of the instrument. It has that nice crinkle coat brown paint on it. Yes the standby switch in this is a must, I avoided using it once or twice and coincedentaly cooked one of the pre tubes. It went microphonic and got all swishy too, luckly my panic was reduced as I had a new one on hand to change it right away and troubleshoot the problem. If an amp starts crackling and getting swishy/hiss, that can be a very bad sign. Sometimes, but not this time. :-) If anyone knows what it may be worth or/and were I can get a logo please let me know. Any info on this model would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ES345 Posted July 20, 2008 Author Share Posted July 20, 2008 hopefully someone, possibly email gibson, they may have some more info, possibly a schematic, they sent me one for my gibson 6A, thanks for posting the picture and information. peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosrocker51 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 Hi 345' date=' (edited) Here it is propping up my 1956 Custom and posing with my 1961 Gretsch 6120. flameburst. flameburst - I cannot get over how great that 1956 Custom looks. I have a few old Gibsons, and was even tempted to get a 1954 Custom, but at $34K it seemed... a bit much. I have a 1958 P90 on a newer LP Jr. & Love the way it sounds, but my 1957 LP Jr (all original but for the tuners) is a real tone monster. If you've played a 54 Custom reissue w P90's, do you think the reissues are close to your original 1956 tone-wise? I've heard the 1970's reissues are as good or better than the oldies, and at about $3500 a pretty good deal. I just can't find one anywhere in Boston to try! Thanks for posting the pics. Love the Gretsch 6120. I'd like to get one with the big "G" branded on it. Take care! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.